Preventing horticultural introductions of invasive plants: potential efficacy of voluntary initiatives

By J. W. Burt, Adrianna A. Muir, J. Piovia‐Scott, K. Veblen, A. Chang, J. D. Grossman, H. W. Weiskel. Biological Invasions, 2007

99 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Although prevention is the most cost-effective way to avoid the enormous expenses associated with plant invasions, invasive plants continue to be imported as trade commodities for horticultural use. With very little government regulation of horticultural imports of invasive plants, efforts have turned toward fostering voluntary initiatives to encourage self-regulation by the horticulture trade. Our study takes the first step toward evaluating the potential success of these voluntary initiatives. We conducted a survey of nursery professionals to gauge their perceptions of invasive species, the role of the horticulture trade in invasive plant introductions, and their participation—potential and actual—in preventive measures outlined in the St Louis Voluntary Codes of Conduct for nursery professionals. We found nursery professionals to be highly aware of invasive plants and to accept responsibility as a trade for horticultural introductions. Although only 7% of respondents had heard of the St Louis Voluntary Codes of Conduct, the majority (57%) reported having participated in at least two of seven preventive measures, and most (78%) reported willingness to engage in the majority of preventive measures. We found that several factors significantly predict increased participation in preventive measures, particularly awareness of invasive plants and involvement in trade associations. We also identified incentives and obstacles to participating in preventive behaviors, including “concern for the environment” and “lack of information,” respectively. Our results suggest that participation in voluntary initiatives will improve through increased outreach, and we provide specific recommendations for improving participation in voluntary programs in the horticulture trade.

Subfields: Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0a96c724c962ef8f2fd0354ac131456418efc3eb

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Citations in the corpus

Global change, global trade, and the next wave of plant invasions (2012, background): “The St Louis Declaration (Baskin 2002) made an important contribution toward identifying ways the horticulture industry can help, but the information has reportedly not reached industry professionals (Burt et al. 2007).”
Integrating invasive species policies across ornamental horticulture supply-chains to prevent plant invasions (2018, unknown): “As a result of these limitations, the uptake of voluntary codes of conduct is generally poor in the ornamental nursery industry (Burt et al. 2007; Hulme 2015b).”
The Beginning of a New Invasive Plant: A History of the Ornamental Callery Pear in the United States (2007, background): “One source of deliberate introduction is through horticulture (Burt et al. 2007), in which plant species are imported by plant explorers, various botanical gardens and arboreta, garden club seed exchanges, some plant nurseries, and the seed trade industry (Reichard and White 2001).”
From the backyard to the backcountry: how ecological and biological traits explain the escape of garden plants into Mediterranean old fields (2010, background): “Although the majority of plants imported for horticulture will never become invasive (Williamson and Fitter 1996; Burt et al. 2007 ), many successful horticultural escapees have caused severe economic (McNeely 2001; Pimentel et al. 2005) and ecological damages (Vitousek et al. 1997; Whelan et al. 2”
The role of intraspecific hybridization in the evolution of invasiveness: a case study of the ornamental pear tree Pyrus calleryana (2009, background): “Multiple introductions may be done deliberately, for example, when plant species are imported for horticulture (Reichard and White 2001; Burt et al. 2007) or accidentally as when seeds are introduced as contaminants during shipping (Sakai et al. 2001).”
Determining non‐invasiveness in ornamental plants to build green lists (2011, background): “However, there is still a lack of policies addressing this pathway, and voluntary codes of conduct are often the only control measure (Baskin 2002; Moss & Walmsley 2005; Burt et al. 2007; Dehnen-Schmutz & Touza 2008; Drew, Anderson &Andow 2010).”